


Antithesis

by VeriteSuiGeneris



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Dark, Dubious Morality, Heroes aren't always good guys, Multi, Redemption, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-27 16:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeriteSuiGeneris/pseuds/VeriteSuiGeneris
Summary: Heroes do what's right, not what's easy. Spies do what needs to be done. Whatever moniker people give him, Clint doesn't meet the requirements. In which Clint's kind of a dick and Loki is kind of not.





	1. Chapter 1

It is difficult to sneak up on him. Difficult, but not impossible. It is a bit galling to be bested by a mortal, and all the more galling that the Spider’s companion is equally capable.

Of course, the Widow doesn’t owe him any vengeance. The Hawk does, and when Loki wakes - how had he been drugged? - he learns that the archer means to collect.

The question is always the same, for hours or days or years. _What are you planning?_

Loki has had plans and knows that he will have plans again, but he holds none at the moment, and he knows that Barton will never believe it, so he never gives an answer. What he does give is his screams. Freely. He is no stranger to agony, and he relearns over immeasurable time how to inhabit it, to greet it as an old friend until he becomes disconnected from it. Time, pain, they lose all meaning, and he rides out the endless suffering, but everything else just stops. He welcomes the blankness, even if it isn’t the oblivion he craves.

 

“Shit.” Clint lets the knife fall from his hand, and the heated metal hisses when it makes contact with the floor. He doesn’t know when Loki’s eyes went from screwed shut to heavy-lidded and glazed, but it’s a look he knows very well. He pushed too hard.

He’s usually more careful when he has to do this, but even years later, it’s difficult to separate himself from what Loki did to him. So maybe he was less controlled, more vicious, but the guy’s a god. He got tossed around by the Hulk and came out no worse for wear, save a handful of bruises. Still, this is out of Clint’s territory, and even he can admit that he needs someone to keep him level where Thor’s brother is concerned. He sends a text.

_Newark safehouse. Did something stupid._

Nat’s reply is almost instantaneous.

_On my way._

 

**Author's Note: This is supposed to be set after the Infinity Wars movies, and I'm operating on the theory that Loki spends most of his time on Team Thanos only to betray him, not necessarily to team up with the Avengers, but to try to protect Thor. This is set sometime after that.**


	2. Unaware

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clint remembers who he is and Natasha handles things like a champ.

Natasha has no reaction to the basement room and the bloodied and broken figure chained to the table beyond, “So this is where he’s been.” 

They haven't needed words to communicate in years, though, and he sees Loki through the lens of her eyes. Suddenly, his actions seem so much worse. It’s not that she’s above torturing someone for information; It’s not her preferred interrogation method, but she’s more than proficient. It’s that she would never be this reckless. She is precise, delicate. A scalpel to his sledgehammer. “I saw him on the news about a month ago, just standing in the crowd after you guys fought with AIM. He’s planning something. I wanted to know what it was,” he says. “Loki… he…” Clint doesn’t quite know how to explain that Loki has become a representation of everything he dreads and has vowed to stand against. He is the first alien threat to the Earth and Clint’s worst memory and greatest fear, all rolled into one. He and Natasha aren’t so different that he doesn’t understand why a lack of control frightens her as much as it does, not that she’d ever admit it. He’d be lying if he said he’d gotten over being the marionette to Loki’s puppetmaster.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Clint.” She is pressing against Loki’s chest with gentle fingers, searching for broken ribs. There are three. “I imagine you  _ will  _ have some explaining to do to Thor, if you intend to let him live.” 

He knows without asking that she’ll let him. They are neither of them the heroes the world considers them. She’ll let him kill Loki and never say a word about it to anyone. Her loyalty to the Avengers is incredible, but her loyalty to him? Well, that trumps everything. “I hadn’t thought much about what I was going to do with him afterwards, to be honest.” 

She hums in acknowledgement and bends to peer closely at Loki’s mangled fingers, then tugs on one experimentally, drawing the exposed bone back into his skin. Even Clint winces at that, but Loki doesn’t react at all. His eyes are open, and his breath rattles in his chest, but he shows no indication whatsoever that it hurts. Doesn’t even blink. Clint has broken fingers before. It hurts. “He’s really far gone.”

He’s planning something,” he says again, and it comes out more defensive than he means it to. 

She pretends not to notice. “Thor thinks he’s redeemed himself.” 

He snorts. “Thor’s trusting, and he wants to see the best in his brother. It’s understandable, but biased.” 

He watches Natasha as she grabs a flashlight from a shelf and aims the beam into Loki’s eyes. Satisfied with whatever she sees there, she clicks it off. “And you’re not?” She pulls his lying mouth open, inspecting it. His teeth are still straight and white, still all there, but Clint knows she’ll find burns inside it, where he forced a coal into Loki’s mouth when he got tired of the snarling threats and curses.

Finally, she straightens and levels a gaze on him. “Well, he’s in there. Somewhere. I can’t tell if he’s going to come out of it, but he’ll go back to this if you keep it up. Even if he tells you his plan, he’ll just make a new one. If he even has one.” 

“He always has a plan.” Clint growls, and she inclines her head, conceding the point. 

“Of course he does. It’s his nature,” she says, and there’s that little bit of impatience. “He can’t stop testing limits any more than you can stop being a spy.” 

“‘Testing his limits?’ That’s putting it mildly. He’s gonna try to take over the world or some shit, and we’re going to have to stop him again. Tasha, I don’t want to have to keep bringing this guy down. I’m retired.”  

“Says the guy torturing foreign hostiles.” She leaves the basement, heading up the wooden stairs towards the safehouse proper. Not that it’s much to look at. It’s pretty much a couch, a table to set up a computer, and a kitchenette full of canned food. She pulls a bottle of the incredibly hard to find Russian beer that he always stocks, and after a moment’s consideration, grabs another one and passes it to him. Without discussing it, they both settle on the couch, her legs thrown over his lap. The corner of her lower lip gets pulled between her teeth, a sure sign that she’s struggling with whether or not to tell him something. It only takes a few heartbeats for her to decide. “We knew he was there. I told you when Loki escaped because we weren’t sure what his motives were. Thor got hurt two weeks later on a mission. He showed up at the base, threatening all manner of mayhem and destruction if we didn’t let him in to see his brother. Since then, he’s made a habit of turning up at our fights. He only gets involved if Thor is in trouble, and even then, he’s kind of a dick about it,” she says, “but I think he’s trying.” 

If anyone else had told him that, he would have dismissed it as being taken in by Loki’s lies. But this isn’t just anyone. It’s Natasha, and even Loki has never fooled her. “If I let him live, he’s going to spend the rest of my life trying to kill me.” 

“Then I’ll take him out.” There’s no hesitation, no mercy in her eyes. “He might not go for revenge. It’s not like you didn’t owe him one.” 

Clint snorts. “I doubt some spoiled princeling will consider this a fair trade. He’s probably never so much as broken a nail.” 

Natasha is eyeing him strangely. “That ‘lights are on but there’s no one home’ thing? That’s called ‘disassociated consciousness’, and it doesn’t happen to people who’ve been tortured once. It happens to people who are tortured repeatedly.”

He supposes she’d know. “So what does that mean for me?” 

She shrugs. “With Loki, who knows?”

The problem with being a spy is that the work gets inside your head. You start seeing threats everywhere. You have to, if you plan to be a spy for long. It makes killing easy in a way that it shouldn’t be, because anyone could be a threat, and you have to be prepared to do whatever has to be done. But being an Avenger gets inside your head too, and damn if it isn’t more rewarding to operate in the light than the shadows. Clint was always careful to stay out of the public eye, but for a little while, he’d been a hero, a good guy. Good guys don’t kill potential threats, even ones so dangerous as Loki. Good guys don’t murder in cold blood, someone who is  _ trying _ to fix a badly broken relationship with their brother. If that’s not something that Clint understands, he doesn’t know what is. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he last saw Barney, but the idea of never being able to see him again… He can’t do that to Thor, who came back with one eye and all the Asgardians left in the universe and his brother as the only family he has left. He can’t kill Loki unless he has no other choice. Clint swears softly under his breath. “Call Banner.” 

 

**Author’s Note: First things first, there are several medical conditions that fall under the category of ‘dissociated consciousness.’** **_Disassociated consciousness_ ** **is 1000% writer bullshit. It’s not real, and if it is, there’s no record of it on Google, but it sounds exactly like what I’m going for here, so I’m going to stick with it. Those of you who understand more of the human brain than I do, I can only ask your forgiveness. We’re getting somewhere here, but there’s still some set-up left before I can get into the meaty goodness of the story.**


End file.
